A Player and No Longer a Fan

What a difference a month makes.

I've been playing World of Warcraft for over eleven years.  I have been subscribed the entire time and never really stopped playing.  I like many features of the game.  I like many mechanics of the game. I like various changes they've made. (Though, I usually don't like it when they take something away.) Over the years, my main has cleared the hard if not hardest raids before they were an easier instance.

I played some Hearthstone, Starcraft, and Diablo and have tried Heroes. A few months ago, I would have called myself a fan of Blizzard. I was also trying to get tickets and fly across the country to Blizzcon.

I'm now thinking I'm glad I didn't get tickets.  It still would be neat and an experience to go. But I'm less interested and that would creep in. I'd feel like an observer instead of someone participating. I will still play, but my interest is fading.  I don't think I can call myself a fan. I'm just a player now.

Sure it's normal that the interest fades when the content is old and done.  And there are many contributing factors.  Garrisons are great and terrible.  6.1 is what 6.0 should have been. The raids are old. The zones are empty because everyone is in their garrison. But all that is a bit beside the point. It's something else.

It feels like there is a lack of respect to the players.  The idea that all that raid farming and hard won achievements yield mounts that flop around on the ground is ... garbage. Our flying mount rewards have turned to garbage.

I think Ion's justifications around not allowing flying are flawed. But the wow fan blowback on this is strong.

If you're curious about this, look into:

• http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/17908690989 (Over 17,000 sometimes heart-felt comments about flying future in many capped threads)
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/BringBackFlying
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/LetUsFly
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoFlyNoSub

Kheldul on Episode 189 of the Hunting Party Podcast

I'm the big eye beholder guy.

Wow 5.0 Raids Available as Cross Realm

Ghostcrawler recently reported that when 5.2 releases, 5.0 raids can be run in a cross realm raid group.  So this begs the question: What 5.0 raid bosses could be taken down in an all-hunter 25man group right off the bat?  Which would require us to completely over-gear them?  Which would be impossible?

Late in Cataclysm, the Warcraft Hunter's Union (remember to pay your dues!) ran some over-powered cross-realm all-hunter raids.  They were great.  I tanked a few and healed a few.  It's fun to have a challenge.

We can heal.  We can bring every buff.  We can DPS like crazy.  We have some self-heal abilities and decent defensive CDs.  But can we adequately tank?  Just ticking through bosses, I'm not sure which if any we'd be able to stand up against.  Long boss fights with lots of raid damage don't favor us.  Sure we'd have 25 people and pets doing some form of damage instead of a normal raid with healers, but the fights aren't that short.  Taunt trick bosses don't favor us because we don't have a true taunt.  Some of that we could get around with clever pet runs and coordinated FDs.  But then there are tank-only gimmicks (e.g.- Feng).  And then there are role-based things (not the raid frames identification -- but the actual talent spec).  If there is no tank or no melee then the encounter might bug in weird ways.

This is an exciting thought experiment that we could marshal enough people to participate in.

REVISED: Heroic Madness of Deathwing Hunter Tips for 5.0.4

With one raiding week left, Blizzard has made Heroic Madness much easier.  Previous to 5.0.4 it wasn't a cake-walk but it was one of the easiest fights.  Immediately after 5.0.4 it was almost impossible for some 10man raid makeups because of bugs.

It's not clear if they fixed all the bugs or if they just nerfed around the edges.  The bloods start out as normal moving mobs and appear to be slow-able still; It isn't clear if they made everyone's slows work again.  Pet pathing issues are fixed as far as I'm concerned; I didn't have my pet run out of range and dismiss himself on almost every platform.

There are many bugged issues with the current Heroic Madness of Deathwing encounter.  Slowing the bloods still may or may not be a bugged encounter issue.  There were always reports of some slows still working.  We used everything that we could.  Because nobody ever got failure messages in previous bugged attempts we have no idea which -- possibly all -- worked.  We can hope that it gets fixed soon if it isn't already.

I used a completely new talent and glyph setup just for this fight.  I expect that phrase will become cliche in MoP.  We had way more DPS than we needed for the fight, so pulling back on some was an easy choice.  Everything about the spec is to defeat the bloods that heal Deathwing ASAP:

1. Glyph of No Escape and Ice Trap - not sure if the traps slowed them but it's the obvious choice.
2. Binding Shot Talent - also not sure if it worked or not, but I always shot it.  I finally got an immune message on this.
3. Thrill of the Hunt Talent - totally can change your rotation but excellent for more multi-shots.
4. Lynx Rush Talent - great for bloods if you don't have focus available.

EDITED TO ADD: At this point it's not worth really taking #3 and #4.  It can help, but with #3, SV is contending with the 5.0.4 bug that has the instantaneous damage from multishot's serpent spread serpent stings not being applied.  Lynx Rush can help with a little bit and really aMoCs isn't really useful on this fight.  But now the bloods move reasonably slow so you can steady/cobra between multi-shots anyway.

Add to that list these standards:

1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera Talent - I disengage on this fight a surprising amount.  I don't recommend it -- and I probably could argue myself out of doing it.  Except I'd still do it.  But you don't take this talent for the disengage.  Use it for deterrence when you get infected with a blood or when you get targeted with shrapnel - the Dream was bugged last Thursday.
2. Aspect of the Iron Hawk Talent - The standard PvE talent if there was one.
3. Glyph of Deterrence - 50% damage reduction is a nice thing when you're infected with the blood.  You have to pop deterrence on the last platform if you get infected and if you've got your cancel aura set up then you should pop it every time you get infected.  It's only a couple seconds of downtime and takes a lot of sweat off the healers.

You do a surprising amount of standing around doing nothing on Deathwing's platform between each 5% round.

It feels quite rewarding to have finished a tier - albeit terribly nerfed - within that tier.  I suppose not being able to use Dream for Corruption tanking and Shrapnel -- and having incredibly difficult to slow bloods -- compensated for that nerf.  We never had DPS or healing issues.  It would have been more interesting to have those challenges. ;-)

EDITED TO ADD: It still feels rewarding to kill heroic madness.  Some of it is that I've only done it four times so far.  Some of it is that we're cycling in more and more new people for the kills.  And we're challenging ourselves to do it in different rainbow orders to help some other people get more achievements.

Heroic Ultraxion 10man for Hunters

Earlier this week we downed Heroic Ultraxion.  It's not news of any sort, but I thought I'd share some tips and tricks I learned along the way.  Next week Dragon Soul gets the 10% nerf so more guilds may be attempting it.  Here's my hunter view on the fight and the differences from normal.

Taking Turns with Hour of Twilight
Instead of just one tank staying in for Hour of Twilight, two people must stay in in heroic-10.  When/if a player stays in, they get a debuff which will insta-kill them if they stay in again.  The debuff lasts two mins, which means that you need six people taking the hour of twilights in a cycle in groups of two.  What's great for hunters, is that we have an AMAZING ability with deterrence.  It is available every two mins AND it prevents ALL damage.  That combination isn't that common.  That means you want to step up and do it.

Hitting Deterrence or the Heroic Will Button
Ultraxion's cast time for Hour of Twilight in heroic is much faster.  It goes from five seconds in normal to only three seconds in heroic.  If you have much latency you'll see it as two seconds.  What this means is that you always need to be ready to hit the right button.  Initially, you'll want to just hit it immediately.  After you get comfortable with your timing, you can slip in an extra shot and cut it closer.  But no matter what, you can't be surprised by it.  Know that it's coming and be ready before it's there.

If it's your turn to stay in and deterrence then you should know when the hour of twilight is coming and you should either have a double-stop-cast deterrence macro, or you shouldn't have any long casts that could delay your deterrence.

Thankfully, the Heroic Will button will cancel any cast.

Note: you should only use Deterrence if your raid[leader] tells you to or if you're in the rotation.

Fading Light
The fading light debuff will affect two dps and one tank in heroic-10 -- instead of just one dps and one tank.  This means you have a good chance of taking a fading light.  To make it more fun, the debuff no longer starts from between five and ten second before it insta-kills you.  It seems to start between three and seven seconds.  If I'm playing with 250ms latency it seems to start at two seconds because of the rounding that occurs with debuffs.

Again to address this, you always need to be ready for fading light.  Don't wait for it to reach zero.  Watch DBM for the timers and be ready.  Don't let this screw up a follow-on deterrence or second heroic will.  There is a situation that can rarely occur;  Heroic will has a 5sec CD so it is possible for it be on CD if fading light and hour of twilight occur closely.  In that case make sure to fade for fading light a little early.

When to DPS: Before the First Twilight
There are no fading lights before the first twilight occurs.  Lay into him and blow CDs.  Prepot.  Whatever you can do.  The fight is over five minutes, so Rapid Fire away. It it pure dps with no interruptions.  Since everyone is in-phase and not interrupted, we found it a nice time to hero.  This is the only time to get dps tunnel vision.

When to DPS: Trinkets
If you have on-use trinkets there are times when you'll want to defer using them for five seconds or so. A good time to hit them is right after a twilight.  For the 1.5min trinket this aligns nicely.  You just don't want to have that lovely dps burst interrupted.

When to DPS: Through and After a Twilight/Fading Light
Once you have the heroic will down, you can start to lay in more shots.  As SV you'll have a few options.  The biggest thing is that you want your DoTs to keep rolling while you're not there.  If you have the option to slightly clip an Explosive Shot's DoT right before fading, you should.  If the consequence is to greatly clip the DoT, then don't!

Fading Lights can be very quick.  I was able to pretty easily always fade with less than two seconds left on the debuff.  If DoTs are ticking so much the better.  But Hour of Twilight is a little bit longer of a dps hiatus.  The boss has the casting bar and then it doesn't actually occur until the wave passes over the group.  And it's whereever on the platform the group could be.  Then and only then do you come back to the twilight.

If you are deterrencing for an hour of twilight, you must have a cancel aura macro on hand.  Do the deterrence; wait for the wave to pass over you; cancel the deterrence; hit every dps CD you have and slam into him.  You'll have a second or more of extra dps that you wouldn't have if you had faded.

Surviving
This is a dps race.  You're doing this with two healers and some smattering of other health and healing abilities.  But you need to survive.  Until about 4.5mins into the fight it's all about proper execution.  Some time after that point it becomes about dps'ng while helping the healers.  When you notice everyone's health really low, consider helping the healers keep you up.

Hunters don't have group damage reduction CDs, but they can cheaply help themselves.  If you're a Dwarf, you can have eight seconds of 10% damage reduction.  When you're DPS'ng from the stairs in a nice tight group, hunters can both attack as melee and range.  Don't pass up a big DPS but if it's only an Arcane Shot vs staying alive, go with staying alive.  Smack a glyphed raptor strike.  Healthstones are also a nice thing to chew at that time.  If you somehow fell into bringing a pet for some buff (it better pay off!) who can intervene now's the time to use it on the active tank.

Loot
The kill can net you the heroic chest, bracers, and another shot at the trinket and ring.  In sadness, please note that the ring is both laden with expertise and best in slot.  For the record: I won the chest this past week.  I have passed (for the moment) on the ring for rogues and ferals.

Radical Re-tuning of Rotations

My guild cleared Deathwing (normal 10) back before Christmas, but because of poor raid and LFR drop luck I only got my 4pc T13 last week.  I had previously been dancing T12x2 and T13x2.  T13x4 is a different world.  But T13x2 is a completely different world from T12.

I'm not sure it's something that can be easily modeled for calculating dps differences.  Sure, we can and should still use femaledwarf.com to work on "what's better", but we may need to put in some assumptions and take things with a bit more salt.

The crazy part of having T13x2 is that as a MM hunter doing hard-cast AiS, you sometimes do shot fragments like this:

CS -> AiS -> SS -> SS -> AiS -> AiS -> SS -> CS -> SS -> SS -> AiS -> AiS -> SS -> SS -> [repeat]

MM rarely if ever did anything like that because focus wasn't available to do much of any value except another SS.  And you really wanted to do that second SS to keep the improved steady shot up.

Well so in walks the 4pc T13 and the proc is very very good.  I find I am compelled to get the T13x4 to proc.  Again, I play MM and previous to 4pc would do a great deal of hard-cast AiS -- basically any time except when on the move or on trash that would die too soon.  But now I'm doing different even more weird shot fragments like:

CS -> AS -> AS -> SS -> SS -> AS -> AS -> AS -> AS -> SS -> SS -> [repeat]

until I get a proc and then I switch into hard-cast AiS.

While I list "rotations" or "priorities", the coming of T13 turns all of that on its head.  MM has many priorities.  Keep the sting up, use chimera, maintaining ISS, and getting that T13x4 proc.  When you add in movement and game mechanics, it really can't be called anything other than nuts.

One essential item for all hunters is having a very visible hunter focus bar front and center.  If you don't have one you need to get one.  Here are a few that do it for you (in my order of preference):

• Serenity
• Hunter Got Focus
• HuntBars
• HunterFocusBar
• EnergyWatch Reborn

Ultraxion Post-Kill Notes Considering Making it Easier

Apologies if you're looking for a strategy guide.  This is a musing look at making Ultraxion easier for me next time.

I know I wasn't dps'ng at 100% efficiency on the kill.  I could have been doing more things in the seconds right before needing to click the button... but it wasn't a safe option.  Especially when the Fading Light debuff sometimes started at only 5sec and was hidden behind buffs.  I could probably get a bit more dps out with practice.   1-5K dps maybe.  But there are other safer options.

One would be: I could reduce my dps but bring a cunning pet that increases spell damager's dps (via  Lightning Breath). The cat or wolf does 3.1k dps and has direct synergy with me.  A cat brings buffs like Roar of Courage, that may be covered elsewhere -- and a wolf brings Furious Howl.  But I could lessen some of the damage with a few Roars of Sacrifice... though probably the only the last one toward the end of the fight is needed.  I don't know what this will come out to be dps-wise.  We'd have to check all the buffs.  More to figure out... and it'll vary based on raid makeup.

Another idea: ensure everyone is back in shadow before heroism is fired off.  (+2K dps)  I know I missed it at least on one attempt.  The kill graph looks like my dps went down during heroism compared to everyone else.  So I'm thinking it happened and I missed it.

Another idea: don't have a dps die and need a brez (+2K dps)  We frequently had dps die because they watched Deadly Boss Mods timers or screamed wrong things in their ears.  Make sure DBM is up to date and realize that the timers only show when an ability is about to start casting.

Another idea: cycle in people with various 100% defensive CDs.  Deterrence looks to mitigate 100%, so they could stay in instead of a tank taking damage which needs healing.  Pallys could bubble, etc.

Yet another this-time crazy idea: Go with two healers.  Healing is "light" until the last third of the fight.  Bring a person who can do some reasonable dps in the first 2/3rds of the fight and then start healing (with the third crystal's help).  The extra damage might mean far less time in healing-hell time.

Alizabal

A friend dropped me a raid strat for Alizabal, the new BH PvP boss which comes out today.  (Sadly, I don't have the source for the strat, so I'll only quote part of it here.)

Everyone, including the affected player, should remain stacked when the boss casts Seething Hate. This strategy will effectively mitigate the otherwise unsurvivable damage from this ability by distributing it between 8/23 players. Please note that even stepping a few yards away from the group can have devastating consequences as the damage is only distributed between players within 6 yards of the affected player.

This has me wondering.  Six yards the important number. And six yards is very very tiny.  Very important. You do not want to eat it by yourself.

So. Can hunters shoot the boss from melee or not? (Some bosses and boss adds allow it, some don't.)  If they don't, we will need to get melee to swing from the farthest out they can -- and we'll stand a hair away from them.

It looks like there's a 8 second cooldown on the ability, but it also appears that it may be an instant cast.

Overflowing Focus, the Bad BA Bug, and Juggling

If you regularly hit and stay at 100 focus then you're rotation is wrong in some way, right?

My answer is: yes, but I end up doing it now as a marksman hunter.

And I do it much more often now thanks to having the Burning Adrenaline buff active (from 4pc T12).  This can have you completely swimming in focus.  And it has a bug that makes that swim in a lake instead of a pool.

Here's the issue.  Some shots only register when they land on the target.  The Burning Adrenaline buff is only removed when the shot lands.  If you are far away from the target there is a travel time to the target.  Say you're a MM hunter.  You have the buff and have 100 focus, fire a "hardcast" Aimed Shot and then immediately a Chimera Shot.  The buff will be consumed and both shots will be free.

This in theory is a boon, but really it just screws up all sense of rhythm for the MM hunter.  MM hunters always want to do two steady shots in a row to keep their +15% haste buff rolling.  Letting that drop is a bad thing.  They also have a fairly close call on their Chimera Shot.  Letting the sting fall off is a bad thing.  And they're good hunters who have trained themselves that capping focus is bad which is exactly what will happen after allowing Burning Adrenaline to consume an Aimed Shot.

So what is there to reach for for a MM hunter?  Firing two or three Arcane Shots takes a lot of time and will let something in your rotation fall.  Hitting Kill Command eats a big chunk in one shot for a little DPS ... and it might not actually work if your pet isn't meleeing.

I think the right approach is to try and lob in as many Arcane Shots as possible and try to at least start the first SS while your ISS buff is still active.  This may cap your focus a bit too long.  KC may be better.  But choosing Arcanes will set MM up nicely for the T13 bonus and it works for our BM and SV specs too.  Of course BM or SV should prefer to use KC and ES as always, but sprinkling in Arcanes is good for them too.

Alysrazor and the Flying Hunter

Let's be clear: Dwarves like to be on the ground.  Being thrown is right out. Flying is almost okay. It's really the domain of Goblins and Gnomes though.  You know; The little people.  If there's a short mage then this should be their job.  Unless they are scared of heights.

We've been hitting Alysrazor since I got back from vacation.  I guess this is the third time we got attempts in.  Past nights, we had just about every typical problem happen and some weird ones too.

If you're not flying, then you're DPS'ng and interrupting the caster adds and helping the tanks, then running with the cyclones, and then contributing considerable DPS on the boss.  Then you do it two more times.

If you are flying, then you're flying through hoops while DPS'ng the boss, running with the cyclones, and then contributing massive DPS on the boss.  Then you do it two more times.  If you're doing it all night from various wipes ... well insist on a bit of a break between attempts to stretch your hands and brain.  It's a bit like doing the Heigan dance in 3D.  The fire cyclones are often the relaxing change of pace.

Flying means you really really want to get every flame hoop acknowledged as having gone through.  I've gone through them too fast and not gotten the little fireworks effect.  I had the camera following my feet through the ring and nada. So pass through it and linger on the other side until you get the effect.  Move as soon as you get the firework effect in anticipation of a new hoop appearing.  They disappear quite quickly.  If they disappear just after you go through it you probably wont get credit either.  They can appear quite far to the side or be obscured by the flak.  Don't go into the flak.  It's easy not to.  When Alysrazor drops down to shed more feathers, you'll have rings above her.  She'll molt twice and then the third decent will be to start the cyclones.

Try to keep a reasonable dps rotation going.  While flying you can do Aimed Shots.  Think of it as Aspect of the Fox with a triple espresso.  It's a nice shot to reach for while you're paused after a hoop.  You really can't afford to miss more than one hoop in a row.  You want to be at 25 stacks of the hoops ASAP.  This gives you a +75% crit buff.  If you do the hoops correctly, you'll be at 25 when she comes up from her second molting.  Again remember that you can see yourself go through the ring but not always get the buff.  And if you miss three or four in a row, your flight wings will disappear and you'll plummet to the ground.  Death is bad.

When you land, you must land close -- but not too close -- to the center.  If you land in the second-to-outside or outside cyclone lane you will take a insta-kill shot for being "too far".  Even though you really aren't.  Go figure.  To counteract that from happening, I land towards the middle and have a /cancelaura macro for my wings.  I suspect landing more centrally than outwardly is the key.

After landing, you need to run with the cyclones and you really want to crab a ring or two.  They will appear on the ground.  Don't die to get them, but if you can get one or two it will refresh your crit buff time and leave you sitting pretty for the P3 burn phase.  Summon your pet if they despawned, click your rapid fires and pot and lay into her after the cyclones end.  Here's what I got last night:

You'll notice the DPS drop just before the spike.  This is the cyclone phase and mostly just auto-shots ringing.  Then following the cyclones is the burn.  I was "only" doing 60K the first time around.  I think this is because I was doing a fairly normal DPS rotation.  In the second and third burns, I was laying in as many "hard-cast" aimed shots as possible.   I don't have the cast time of them, but it felt like it was 1 second if not trying to be less. While "focus" is not specifically mentioned as a refund item, focus was hardly ever any sort of problem, so I suspect it is refunded at a fantastic rate.

After Alysrazor gets up to 50 focus she'll get up and start tossing some serious damage.  You should be grouped up and getting AoE heals.  She wont still have her burn phase debuff, but you will still have some of your buffs.  Crank what you can.

Then repeat all this.  Three times.

That means you roughly want to take her down 1/3rd health each round.  If you're MM, you'd ideally like to have her at less than 66% if you're the one flying.  You do a lot more damage to her when you're in the careful aim range.  Ideally, you'll have her down below 93% health before even the first cyclones.  Toss in a hero on the third time through the burn phase and you probably want her around 63% health at the end of the first round.

Went Back and Got Shannox

Third time in with as many different groups of tanks.  I think this time it was helped greatly by setting out raid markers to visually cue tanks on where to generally go, where to move to when the spear is thrown, and what boundaries not to exceed.  The only flaws we had were some healers getting crystalized.  I chalk that up to them not all having the latest DeadlyBossMods installed.

I don't usually raid on Mondays.  I'm glad we did go back and nail him.  Seems easy now.

Our strategy was fairly ordinary.   Position one tank with Riplimb ~50 yards from the tank with Shannox.  Put raid markers where they are generally tanked.  Put a raid marker inbetween those positions.  Ranged is spread out between the Riplimb and middle position.  Then put another raid marker out another 20 yards so you have room to shift if you need to.

When the spear is thrown, the Riplimb tank carefully runs to the middle with Riplimb.  A crystal trap may be used then or spaced for when he goes for the spear.  We had a DK DPS on Riplimb the whole time to be able to apply chains.  I would intersperse concussion shots.  We didn't use slowing traps to help avoid accidental raiders stepping on Shannox's traps.  The Shannox tank strafes left or right to extend the time.

DPS burned the hell out of Rageface.  If you can be Marksman, you should for this fight.  You need to hit hard and break Rageface's face.  His stunning damage attack is random on a player.  But he'll attack (non-stunning) the player that snaps him out of his humanoid-feast.  This will likely be you, mages, and elemental shammies.  Luckily, you'll crit a lot when he's face-down into one of your friends.  When he comes after you, throw deterrance if it's up and drag him through Shannox's explosive traps (not the crystal ones).  You can get some space to fire off some shots, but don't disengage.  You'll screw up your fellow DPSers, healers, and that's if you don't land in a trap yourself.

After Rageface is down, I nuked Shannox from 100% to 90%.  It was damn quick.  Then the other DPS kept on Shannox, while I joined the DK on bringing down Riplimb.  We had it fairly balanced so Riplimb went down as Shannox was at 30%.  That's fairly ideal.  Generally, you will want to get Shannox down to 37% or so and nuke Riplimb and then burn Shannox.  We lucked out on DPS balancing.

Then it's burn phase on the boss.  You go from 30% to 0%.  There still isn't any taunting.  Carefully move to a more open space.  If your healers aren't OOM you're golden.  If the tank goes down, then there's no recovery and it's a 9 minute fight that you lost.  So don't take any stupid damage in this phase.  Stay in range of heals, but don't count on them.  Use your healthstone after everyone takes spear damage.  Blow all your DPS cooldowns.  Don't chatter in vent thinking it's a sure thing.  Enlarge this image if you need help visualizing that. ;-)

Cata DoTs

Cataclysm will not be allowing (or demanding of) you to front-load the crazy empowered crit SrpS for the Chimera to refresh for the entire fight.  That sounds like good news to me.  I don't like flipping into my T9x, T10x2 set in LK and wont want to do something similar in Cata.

HoT and DoT refresh
Dots and hots adjust on the fly now when they're refreshed. There is less reason to try and get everything lined up perfectly for big numbers before you cast the spell. You'll be able to game it a little bit for the initial spell duration, but it won't refresh infinitely with the big numbers.

We have to rebalance the entire game anyway given the magnitude of the Cataclysm changes, so don't worry about being penalized for any old mechanics that may no longer be relevant. (Source)

On The Road To Being a Marksman - Part 7

Another hunter asked me in the raid Wed night if I wanted a particular drop (if it dropped). I had no idea. So gear planning is the order of the day. I revisited one great resource I already knew about and found one I hadn't ever tried before. I learned the answer to the question and I found out a lot more.

The first stop is "hunter-loot.com". You can get to it directly or you can get a nice and easy custom loot list by; a) going to femaledwarf.com, b) importing your profile, c) enabling the best raid buffs and debuffs, d) hitting update DPS, and finally in the update DPS tab click the link to the customized hunter-loot list. It sounds long, but it takes me 15seconds now. Here is my custom loot list. It is pretty handy to be able to link to the list.

It tells me I should downgrade (iLevels) in a bunch of places in order to get higher DPS. Yes! I'm currently doing gear wrong for Marksman. It also points out a few upgrades that I already know I should make. And it highlights how incredibly well-itemized gear is from ICC-10 Heroic. I however don't really trust hunter-loot.com for proc based gear. It ranked the Lady DW bow that has a proc as pretty low. And it says it doesn't handle trinkets well.

The second gear planner I tried was RAWR. I had never tried it before and it's pretty nice. You go there and download it. I re-discovered it after talking to a rogue friend who wanted help with gear planning. To his dismay it is a Windows program. RAWR3 is in beta and is a Silverlight-based web app. Silverlight purports to support Apples but it's a Microsoft library. That said, Silverlight is competing against Flash so Microsoft does have a little incentive to have it work everywhere.

RAWR seems to hide a lot of detail from the user. And it isn't fast to configure raid buffs. But it does a great job graphically. And it lets you gear plan and prune possible drops that may be out of your ability to obtain. For instance: my guild is not going to be headed to ToGC-25 any time soon. Uncheck it and boom! Those items are gone.

RAWR also has a nice stat benefit/analysis. It claims that currently ArPen is in fact slightly better for me than Agility. But only ever so slightly. Since my SV and MM gear are currently the same, I won't be switching anything out. But when I get a side-grade piece just for MM, I'll know which gem to slot in.
I am a little suspicious of both hunter-loot.com and RAWR as far as set bonuses. I suspect RAWR handles procs better. That said, I believe femaledwarf.com and the spreadsheet both would be a good verification step before anyone does anything ... drastic with their gear.

Maxing DPS with Disengage in ICC

I use disengage in every ICC fight except the gunship. It's a very fast way to move and not delay shots.

I don't try to use it for running straight faster though. I'm a combo mouse and keyboard mover. It works well for me. And running without stuttering your movement delays auto shots and lowers your DPS. So I'll usually do a slightly not straight move. I run straight, stutter, strafe-turn-disengage then mouse-turn back. Depending on cooldowns, I might also let steady-shot turn me as its castbar progresses.

Here's how I use disengage in ICC.

Marrowgar
There is often a lot of distance to cover. Plus it's great to clear frost lines.

Lady Deathwhisper
I generally DPS LDW and am responsible for the back guy (who is tanked). I hit disengage after DPS'ng and mouse turn in midair with a MD on the rear tank. After downing the rear mob, I quite literally strafe some side mobs on the return to the boss.

Saurfang
Disengage straight back if my bloodbeast gets too close. This happens surprisingly little. But in a pinch it's great with a slow trap and a concussion shot.

Rotface
Move out of center in one click, just aim your butt for something not overly green.

Festergut
If I'm not the collapse spot, it's how I move to my spot after a collapse. Quick rotate, disengage, quick rotate (possibly via steady shot which will rotate you while winding your cast bar).

Putricide
No specific use here, but it's often to get in range of a dps target instead of moving away. You do have to choose one or another and it's probably just easier for me to properly disengage when I'm under less pressure. I do occasionally use it in the final burn phase.

Dreamwalker
I'm usually on kiting and safe-killing duty of the explosive zombies. It's great for kiting. It's also great for getting to DPS a blazing skeleton on the other side of the very large room.

Blood Princes
I'm not usually on kinetic bombs. One of the luxuries of having a bunch of hunters. So I use it to get to far range of the everyone-spread-out shock vortex.

Blood Queen
Again, I use it to get to far range for a spread-out before the fear timer hits. Basically it just gives me a little more time DPS'ng the boss.

Sindragosa
I haven't killed her in 25man yet. Chalk it up to business travel and light attendance? But it's pretty common to pop it after the pull-in.

Lich King
Supposedly if you are carried by the Valkyries, you can get a priests' levitate and disengage back from the cliff if they drop you. I tried to do it without a friendly priest and it just launched me under the platform for a long long time. I did use it in other ways. But I used it sparingly. I used it for positioning on killing the Valkyries. I used it in killing and kiting orbs. I used it when a Valkyrie grabbed someone and then we had to move for the black ooze. But that's luck of the timer. Generally, I didn't use it anywhere near a ledge. With a 25 second cooldown on Disengage and a 15 minute plus fight you could use it a silly number of times.

Traveling and Great Places To Camp

Raiders! Krasus’ Landing sucks. If you aren't a mage, you have your hearth in Dalaran. Going from one of the few inns out to Krasus’ Landing and then flying to ICC requires you do dodge all of Dalaran's no fly zone. You can skirt to the north and/or below Dalaran. But it is just irksome.

I loved it when ToC was the thing to do. Not because it was a good instance -- it wasn't near the top of the list. But I liked it because of the portal tabard. The Black Temple was a good instance, if but a little too hard. And it had a very nice neck piece for frequent visitors.

Now, if you have an engineer, you can use your personal wormhole to flip around Northrend once every four hours. That only helps you with The Eye and Ulduar, which don't see much activity these days.

Express Raider Travel Options
Since they're not going to rotate Dalaran 180 degrees any time soon and point Krasus' Landing in the right direction, I'll give you two very nice alternatives. Pleasant even!

Hearth and Travel Option #1: If you really like to camp at one of the two public respectable inns in Dalaran instead of riding to Krasus' Landing and then flying around Dalaran, ride to the Violet Citadel. Take the portal up near the rep vendor, opposite the portal to Tanaris. Once in the Purple Parlor walk outside. Mount up and fly directly to ICC.

Hearth and Travel Option #2: If you don't mind the smell of garbage and blood, set your inn to the one down below in the sewers. When you hearth, you will be a quite literally just a step away from a vendor, your bank, the guild vault, and a mailbox. When you want out, just mount up, and ride down the tunnel. Switch to your flying mount at the end and fly directly to ICC.

I'm still using Option #1. I like to see people and don't mind capturing gearscores as I do. But option #2 really is just missing an AH and toilet. Then you'd never have to leave.

Logging In The Field

When I raid, I usually login with only a few minutes before the start of a raid. So I will usually fly Kheldul to the instance and logout right there -- either a day or two in advance. I'll resupply with mail from my alt courtesy of my squire. I'll mount up and repair and sell any junk I don't need. Those two items are really great for staying out in the field. Engineers of course have other options.

Camping the Auction House

For anyone who supplies (or "plays") the auction house, there is a great little spot for Alliance players. Not many talk about it because it does provide a competitive advantage. The spot is in Stormwind and you can access your mailbox and auction house without running between the two. Make a macro to target the left-most AH vendor. Then hotkey an "interact". You can interact with her by banging on the wall -- while standing next to the mail box outside. It's... glorious.

Alternate Identities Supporting Your Main

I have two level 80 characters. I don't talk much about my alt, Khelark, but she's pretty great for an alt. While she is fun to play in her own right, she is mainly there to support Kheldul.

1) She makes all the serious money. She does it by "creating value". She's got tons of gem cuts. She usually has between a half-dozen and dozen uncut epic gems of every flavor in her inventory. She supplies AH with a steady stream of the things people need at a reasonable profit.

2) She is often camped at the Auction House. She makes sure Kheldul has ammo, flasks, speed pots, and even health pots.

3) She makes sure Kheldul has all the right epic gems he needs in the mail for dps and pet-tanking... often fetch-able during a raid thanks to Knight Kheldul's other loyal supporting squire. And if Kheldul gets some loot on a Wednesday, Khelark just buys him the suitable enchant if nobody is available to do it, before the Thursday raid.

4) While she has bought herself a few nice things (1, 2, 3) for 9-12k gold each, she gives Kheldul plenty of goodies -- some that even have very useful effects.

5) She converted plenty of things to BoA honor tokens and sent them to Kheldul so he could get honor gear twice as fast.

6) Finally, she supports Kheldul as a release valve. If I want to do a PUG, a 5.4k gearscore healer can get an invite pretty quick. I don't have to worry about raid locking my main. I don't have to go over-board focusing on the most minuscule issues on my hunter. A healer can make or break a group. And there are new sometimes unexpected challenges. "Can I heal and dps more than the dps?" Last week, I solo-healed VoA-10 and went on a reasonably successful ICC-25 PUG. I even have proof of doing the easy gunship battle in heroic. Release valves are a good way to keep your main fresh.

Kheldul's Hunter DPS Tip #23: KISS

Tip #23: Keep It Simple Stupid (K.I.S.S.)
There have been almost two dozen non-trivial not-so-conventional hunter DPS tips so far. There are quite a few left to come. Refer to the tip list before playing. I strongly suggest you decide on just two of the tips to try and work in. Do not try to change everything you do. That's not the point of the tips and it won't work. Focus on just getting used to two of the suggestions. When you think you're comfortable, and have used them in raid conditions, then is the time you should work in some more.

Kheldul's Hunter DPS Tip #20: A Room With a View

Tip #20: A Room With a View
Zoom out. Hunters don't do well with a first-person-shooter view. Go isometric and zoom out at a 45 degree angle. It often helps you see more of the fight area by zooming out even further (this requires a little more computer power):

/console cameraDistanceMaxFactor 4

If you have a job to do pivot your perspective without pivoting your character. You can also get a top-down view if you need to ... say run around and gobble up orbs of your color in ToC. And if you're resistant to using a /range display then you can more easily eye-ball the distance between you and your control-V'ed neighbor.

You can also use it in Anub's room, pivoted down and see the frost orbs by looking down instead of looking up.

Kheldul's Hunter DPS Tip #19: DPS for Dummies

Tip #19: DPS for Dummies
Every so often you should go get some super-cheap ammo and practice with a target dummy. Give yourself permission to practice in the purest form. Hop off the hampster wheel of daily quests for 15 minutes. The target dummy will not require you to move, but you can try moving in-between your cooldowns and autoshot timer. You can try variations in your rotations and look for differences. It's easy and you will change something you do, modify a macro, or change something in your UI you've always meant to. I promise you will.

Kheldul's Hunter DPS Tip #17: Small Pauses Aren't Always Bad

Tip #17: Small Pauses Aren't Always Bad
If you have a big shot coming off cooldown reaaal soon, but it isn't quite there yet, should you wait? The shot analyzer spreadsheets do not wait. They take what is available off cooldown and fire them off in priority order you specified. If you do this while raiding, you will often do a Steady Shot when your big shot or shots are just 0.1 seconds away from being available. Think of it this way: If your money shot is twice or three times as good as a steady shot then you should allow yourself to wait to fire it. Spamming the Steady Shot when Kill Shot, Explosive Shot, or Chimera Shot are almost available is usually a slight DPS loss.